Santee Mission (La Mision)
St. Mary’s seeks to live the Catholic Social Teaching of Solidarity that we are one human family. We express this principal locally through the Santee Mission, a poor and neglected community in East San Jose; nationally through our Sister Parish in Pascagoula; and internationally through our Partners in Mission in Ecuador.
The apartment where the Sisters of the Holy Names live and
teach religious education to families in the Santee Mission
Overview of Activities at the Santee Mission
More than ten years ago, three Sisters of the Holy Names started La Mision Guadalupana de Santee (The Santee Mission), an urban ministry in the Santee neighborhood, the poorest area of East San Jose.
The Sisters slowly transformed a neighborhood filled with potholes, infested with drug dealers and resembling a war zone, into a more peaceful place, providing religious education and Sunday worship to the many children and their families who live in densely packed housing apartments and single family homes in the Santee Mission. This mainly immigrant and refugee population would not otherwise be able to participate in Catholic education and worship because of over-flowing conditions in the surrounding Eastside parishes (see the letter from the pastors of these parishes below).
Sister Miriam Daniel Fahey (SNJM) describes the Santee Mission
to St. Mary’s Peace and Justice Council at their meeting March 26, 2007
St. Mary’s Peace and Justice Council and a group of JustFaith Alumni from our church were instrumental in making parishioners aware of the Santee Mission through a second collection that raised enough funds to meet the Mission’s budget shortfall of $10,814 for the year July 2007 to June 2008. The Sisters continue to seek funds to meet this year’s operating costs. Their work is funded through donations.
Following the lead of the parish, St. Mary’s High School Youth Group (WAV) also have been active in reaching out to the Santee Mission. Dedicated projects have included presenting 50 shopping bags filled with sugar, rice, and beans to the community at mass on the first Sunday of Advent; donating warm sweatshirts and sweaters as gifts for over 80 children on the Feast of Epiphany; and providing 25 backpacks filled with supplies for back to school. In addition WAV used monies from their Service Auction to fund Spanish language rosary bookmarks for the community and bi-lingual religious education resource books for the teachers. Based on a need identified by the Mission, our parish teens created a beautiful book of Spanish Christmas Carols and produced 100 copies.
WAV youth pack bags of food staples for the Santee Mission
WAV has planned a special fundraising event – A Pancake Breakfast – to be held at St. Mary’s on Sunday, March 15, 2009 after all of the morning masses. All of the profits will go directly to the Santee Mission community.
St. Mary’s parishioners are individually donating their time, talent, and treasure to the Santee Mission through personal contributions, and other works of charity. For example, several medical professionals from our parish offer health screenings for hypertension and diabetes once a month for the families in the Santee Mission, following the community’s 10 a.m. Sunday mass in Spanish. Older children translate so the doctors and nurses from our parish can provide health education depending on the need.
St. Mary’s invites more medical professionals to participate in this worthwhile work. Few of the adults at Santee have health insurance. Several undiagnosed diabetics and individuals with elevated blood pressure readings have been discovered and referred to the nearby free clinics for follow-up.
If you would like information about how you can help out in any way at the Santee Mission, call St. Mary’s Outreach at 354-4061 ext 121.
Santee Mission Thank-You from Sister Miriam Daniel Fahey, SNMJ
To our brothers and sisters of St. Mary Church, Los Gatos:
This beginning sounds like St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians or Colossians, but I would like to express the gratitude of the congregation of the Mission at Santee and mine.
When Donald Hand of the St. Mary’s Peace and Justice Council stopped by our convent today to share the good news, I was dumbfounded to learn about the generosity of the people of St. Mary's resulted in a collection of $11,000. for the expenses of running the mission.
You have already heard that most of our congregation have come from Mexico looking for a better life for themselves and their children. The spiritual life is equally important to them and we are happy to have been able in these many years to be able to minister to them.
St. Maria Goretti Church has for many years born the burden of the expense of running the mission and I know that they will be grateful for the help that you have given to continue the work.
I am sure that all our people join me in saying "thank you" for your generosity. I hope to meet you in the future to express my thanks in person.
May God bless all of you and your families!
Very gratefully,
Sister Miriam Daniel Fahey, Coordinator, Santee Mission
A Letter From Pastors of Eastside Catholic Parishes Asking for Help for the Santee Mission
St. Mary’s Parish became involved with the Santee Mission when we received a letter in 2007 signed by seven pastors of the Catholic parishes in east San Jose, asking us and all the other parishes in the Diocese of San Jose, to help them support the Santee Mission.
These pastors (from St. Maria Goretti, Most Holy Trinity, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. John Vianney, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Patrick Cathedral, and Christ the King) explained that the people who live in the Santee area would not be to attend Catholic services were it not for the Sisters, because their parishes are already full to overflowing and do not have the capacity to expand into the Santee area. As the pastors wrote in their letter, “About one-third of Catholics who attend Mass come to our parishes. Most of the time, these parishioners experience Standing Room Only and the parishes do not have the facilities or personnel to handle the numerous other members of the community who might want to come. We watch as small communities of other denominations grow in our area and reach out to the Spanish and Vietnamese-speaking parishioners in the Santee area. We are caught in a Catch-22 situation.” That is why the pastors wrote to seek help and support to sustain the essential work of Sisters of the Holy Names to reach out to the Catholic population in the Santee Mission.
St. Mary’s responded by inviting Sr. Miriam Daniel Fahey, SNJM, who coordinates the Santee Mission project, to speak to our Peace & Justice Council about the needs of the mission. Moved by her story and the great need of fellow Catholics in the Santee, St. Mary’s held a second collection at all of our masses to help the Sisters meet their budgetary needs for religious education that year.
The Story of the Santee Mission
St. Mary’s School has been served for many years by the Sisters of the Holy Names, most notably by our principal, Sister Nicki Thomas. Her community’s convent is located here in Los Gatos, but not all of the Sisters live there. A small group of these Sisters have chosen to live among the poorest people in East San Jose. Their neighborhood is a series of narrow streets and densely packed apartment houses along Santee Drive. The San Jose Mercury News has labeled this neighborhood the “poorest” in the city, and it is in this place that four Sisters of the Holy Name have spent the last 10 years of their lives for something they call the “Santee Mission.”
This is the story of a poor and neglected neighborhood in east San Jose and the impact that a group of elderly Holy Names Sisters had on it. It takes place in a small corner of St. Maria Goretti Parish, an area of eight square blocks of rundown four-plexes, where Hispanics, Vietnamese and Cambodians squeeze eight to ten family members into two-bedroom apartments. This place is called the “Santee,” an area that was known for crime and drug dealing.
In 1995 Sisters Martha Bendorf and Guadalupe Johnston made a decision to begin living in a place where they could be a “prayerful presence” in a poor neighborhood. With the help of Brother Paco Gomes, a Marianist who had been working among the people of the Santee, the Sisters found a two-bedroom apartment within the neighborhood and moved in. In the year that followed Sister Catherine Irene, a music teacher who was also interested in working with the poor, became a frequent visitor, particularly at Sunday Mass which was held in the local public school. Sister Catherine’s interest in liturgy, coupled with her musical talent, added much to the enjoyment of weekly Mass, and community participation began to grow.
Sisters Martha and Guadalupe, both fluent Spanish speakers, began helping the community with learning English. Hoping to also teach English as a second language, Sister Catherine began to study Spanish at Holy Names College under the mentoring of Sister Miriam Daniel Fahey. Sister Miriam, who was approaching her Golden Jubilee and losing a bit of her hearing (essential gift in language instruction) decided to “hang up” her teaching career and “retire to the Santee.” By November of 1996, Sister Catherine Irene moved to the Santee and Sister Miriam Daniel followed two months later.
Once all four Sisters had moved to the neighborhood, the “Mision Guadalupana de Santee” (The Santee Mission) was born. Fr. Kevin Joyce, pastor of St. Maria Goretti, employed Sister Miriam as “part-time coordinator” (the only paid position) for the Mission. Sister Martha, an early childhood expert, knew the importance of reading in the education of children and began a library on wheels. This flowered into a room with books and videos in English and Spanish donated by family and friends for some 80 neighborhood kids. Sister Catherine Irene went after the Sunday liturgy, developing a musical group of singers and guitarists, “…to lend dignity to our weekly celebration.” She organized workers to decorate the school auditorium for masses, and saw to the liturgical colors of the seasons as the Church’s year cycled. Sister Guadalupe initiated a “Healthy Start” nutrition instruction program for young mothers and established an after-school homework center for the neighborhood kids. The Sisters’ language fluency, personal warmth and physical residency drew the people of the neighborhood to the Santee Mission.
In the years that followed, the sisters faithfully ministered to the spiritual, emotional and educational needs of the Santee community. They also addressed the political needs. The Sisters attended monthly meetings of PACT (People Acting in Community Together) which rallied the community members to go to Superior Court to bring injunctions against absentee landlords. They fought to get streets repaired, worked to keep a conveniently located hospital open, assisted in getting affordable child health insurance for families, and helped adults to get easier legal access to drivers’ licenses.
In 2005, Mercury News columnist Joe Rodriguez wrote a story of urban legend about Sister Miriam Daniel Fahey. He described a situation in which she became confrontational with a drug dealer who was loitering in the neighborhood. The locals related watching Sister Miriam running the young tough out of the neighborhood with angry threats of a police call. In short, an area that was more of a war zone than a neighborhood, where once the front lawns were filled with parked cars, where alleys were pock-marked by gaping holes that became lagoons in the rainy season, there is now a green zone with manicured lawns surrounded by wrought-iron fences, repainted buildings, and alleys that have been restructured and transformed by San Jose’s revitalization plan.
Today, although her health has forced her to retire from the mission, Sister Martha’s library continues to flourish. Sister Guadalupe teaches the oldest children who have not received their First Holy Communion and plans the seasonal gift giveaways. Sister Catherine balances her choir’s growth and direction with her ESL classes. And, Sister Miriam, the coordinator/leader of the group, keeps tabs on the families and prepares materials for the catechetical classes beginning in September. The Mission also runs adult classes for marriage preparation, parenting skills, religion, and annually hosts a women’s retreat at the Holy Names Convent in Los Gatos. The love and energy that flows from these women to their adopted community is only increased when you consider their ages. Sister Guadalupe is the only member of the team who is still in her 70’s. Sisters Miriam, Catherine and Martha are all past their 80th birthdays! Clearly, it is evident that the Hand of God was behind the good intentions of the Sisters to be a “prayerful presence” among the poor of the Santee Mission community.
If you would like information about how you can donate your time, talent or treasure to the Santee Mission, call St. Mary’s Outreach at 354-4061 ext 121.